Simon Stevin was born in Bruges, Flanders, the son of Antheunis Stevin and Cathelijne van de Poort. As a young man, he began work as a bookkeeper, but soon found work as an itinerant engineer. He traveled widely, visiting France, Germany, and perhaps even Poland and Norway before returning to Bruges in 1577 to become a tax collector.

In 1581 Stevin traveled north to enter the University of Leiden, where the first classes for engineers were being held. The works of antiquity had been newly rediscovered, and those of Euclid, Apollonius of Perga, and Archimedes would play a large part in Stevin's own scientific accomplishments. (Stevin added to this cultural revival by translating the works of Diophantus of Alexandria for the first time.)

Stevin is best known as a contributor to two branches of physics: statics (the science of forces producing equilibrium) and hydrostatics.

Stevin, like René Descartes and...